ah, the first meetings of the year. a flurry of activity. October 5, 2006
The below, incredibly long email is the result of 3 things.
- The concerns sent to us from some students via email. These were presented to graduate student director Matt Hunt on Sept. 28 in his open meeting with graduate students.
- These are the responses that Matt Hunt gave us during the Sept. 28 meeting.
- These are the responses given by faculty members during the Oct. 4 COGS meeting (Committee on Graduate Studies).
Each concern and their respective responses are below, one by one.
1. Students are concerned that faculty are taking little to no time to help them, reach out, or even learn their names, much less make themselves available to act as mentors. While many students are comfortable being proactive in this respect, some are not, and are being unfairly overlooked. Faculty should encouraged to make more of an effort. On a related note, students concede that some professors probably participate with graduate students at a much higher rate than others. This extra effort on the part of a few does not excuse the refusal of others to participate (actual refusals have occurred).
Matt Hunt meeting = students should be proactive; “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”; on the other hand, it’s not appropriate for faculty to outright refuse someone; faculty are busy, and although a few participate with students on a very high level, others don’t work with students much, and can’t really be forced to; he’s discussed this with colleagues, who are not willing to make an extra effort without incentives; he suggested the graduate students come up with some kind of reward/award.Students present seemed to like this idea, but also realized that a simple “Best Faculty Member” award would not be meaningful to those faculty members who were already not already working with students. One student said, “If professors aren’t willing to work with us, why should we work for them?”
COGS meeting = reps noted that those who are willing to participate heavily with graduate students already are, and we don’t want to unfairly (additionally) burden them by asking more of them. Ultimately, every faculty member needs to participate. Some faculty members agreed that it is the duty of graduate students to reach out and network on their own (”part of graduate student socialization”). Other faculty members seemed to appreciate that it is difficult for some students to do this.
2. A good deal of time and energy has been spent talking about the process of finding out whether or not you’re being funded the next year. This is true across NUTA’s, TA’s, RA’s,. and SGA’s. There is an understanding that budgets are budgets, and to some extent the dept. has no control. However, students seem to be most upset that they don’t know what steps occur between the budget decisions being made and a funding letter being sent or not being sent.
Matt Hunt meeting = Budgets are budgets. Steps between budgets decisions and funding letters were not discussed. Dr. Hunt seemed to be surprised to find out that students are never officially informed that they will not be funded in the future. One student confirmed that this has been the system for at least the last 5 years. This same student suggested that a ranking of graduate students be posted so that students will know ahead of time how likely it is that they will get funding. This was suggested because some students get the feeling that decisions are made privately and purposefully in favor of favorite students. Rankings would at least remove some of the mystery from the funding situation. Some students objected to this idea because it would increase competition among students, to the detriment of students’ friendships with each other.
An agreement was made that a global email will be sent out notifying students that funding decisions are completed. There was also talk of sending out an email listing everyone who had been awarded funding for the next year. No decision was made about this.
COGS meeting = it was stressed by a staff member that graduate students are NOT guaranteed funding from year to year, no matter what they think or have been told (erroneously). Funding decisions are made annually after budget decisions are handed down from higher offices. The department usually receives their budget in February or March for the following year. Even so, faculty agreed that the current system of informing or not informing students of funding decisions is not acceptable. One faculty member lamented the spotty quality of university email. All agreed that funding letters (and other very important information) will be placed in graduate student mailboxes. So start checking your mailboxes!
3. On a related note, there is deep concern over the amount of notice given to students who learn they will NOT be receiving funding. The issue is that there is often not enough time to secure other teaching positions by the time you find out NU won’t be hiring you.
Matt Hunt meeting = see #2
COGS meeting = one staff member noted to COGS reps that those students who are not receiving future funding “are very much aware of why,” suggesting to us that personal meetings are held. While faculty appreciated this issue, they blamed the late funding allocations by the university and suggested their hands were tied.
4. Students are upset about a couple of issues surrounding office hours. One, some professors seem to not hold any. Two, professors say they will be in their office from X time to Y time, but are never present, leaving the students waiting in the hallway for them to show up. For graduate students, office hours means you will actually be physically in your office, not at lunch or running errands throughout the dept. Related to this, professors don’t seem to be keeping the front office informed about when they plan to miss office hours for such reasons as not being on campus that day, or being out of town. Three, students have noticed that office hours are being used by professors to hold long meetings with students they’re advising. This makes it nearly impossible for other students to “drop in,” as office hours would suggest.
Matt Hunt meeting = students should make appointments, even during office hours. This should avoid the problems of not being able to meet with students. Matt shared that his brother, who is also a professor, always gives students who are enrolled in classes priority during office hours. To that end, students can knock or interrupt if the prof. is with someone that’s not enrolled, and the prof. will have to make time for them. There was no discussion of making this the standard in our dept. It was just shared as an idea.
Dr. Hunt did confirm that faculty members are required by the Dean’s Office of Arts & Sciences to hold three office hours per week. However, if professors are on sabbatical, they’re not required to hold any. Dr. Hunt said he didn’t know the required standard for professors who were not on sabbatical but also not teaching.
COGS meeting = one faculty member said it’s every faculty member’s responsibility to hold office hours, and to have them posted. The front office confirmed that office hours will be typed and displayed uniformly on faculty doors, as was done in the past. Another faculty member emphasized that students should make appointments, even during office hours. This way the faculty member knows they are coming and will (should) be sure to be available.
5. While the students appreciate COGS reps being present at COGS meetings, they have requested more general meetings with the graduate director to be held. Because this is your first semester as grad. director, we don’t know if you were planning on holding more meetings or not. This is simply something that has been requested.
Matt Hunt meeting = Dr. Hunt would like to know what topics we would like workshops presented on. He likes the idea of a regular seminar series. Previous topics have included:How to apply for a grant, how to write a dissertation proposal, how to write a dissertation. Some suggestions received include: how to write a comp, how to give a job talk, how to get published?
6. Advising: those students that entered in 2004-2005 (now 3rd years) were assigned a temporary advisor at orientation. However, this did not occur for the 2nd or 1st years, since then. Students have expressed concern that they are “floating loose” or “drifting aimlessly,” with no one guiding their progress through the program. This seems to be especially true for those students who do not come into the program with a specific mentor in mind, or who have not decided on their specialty. Perhaps some kind of student-faculty mentoring/advising could be in place for these students.Matt Hunt meeting = Dr. Hunt agreed and said he would make temporary assignments.
COGS meeting = Since last week’s grad student director meeting, when it was promised that temporary advisors would be named, they since have been. Students should be, according to staff, receiving notice of their advisors today (Oct. 5). This includes both first and second year students. Please alert your friendly COGS reps if you do not receive this by the end of this week. These may be in your mailboxes in 549 Holmes or via email.
7. Grad/Undergrad crosslisted classes: “While this is good for faculty members since they can reach both groups at the same time, and gives grad students a wider variety of classes, it is detrimental to grad students when class is geared towards the undergrads and taught at a lower level. If a grad class is going to be offered to undergrads or vice versa, the class must be taught at the level of a grad class (and restrict entry to serious undergrad students only) or it’s a waste of class time. However, crosslisted classes within the social sciences/humanities grad programs would be great. The history department is teaching really interesting classes this semester, for example.” (this came from a grad student’s email to me). On a related note, students would appreciate the department making some effort to make them aware of cross-listings that might apply to them.
Matt Hunt meeting = The new president is very gung-ho about a new 5 year BA/MA program, which sociology will be participating in. It is unclear as to what will happen to the co-op experience for these students, but it may be that co-op will have to be forfeited in order to finish in 5 years. He suggested that cross-listing classes will not be problematic concerning the quality of the class. COGS reps reminded him that decreased quality is already an issue in one class. This class is being offered now, being team taught with a faculty member from another college within Northeastern. A large portion of the enrolled students are undergraduate, and students have expressed concern about the poor quality of the class, which they attribute to the presence of undergraduate schools. Dr. Hunt was not aware of this issue and said he would look into it.
COGS meeting = One faculty member expressed concern that non-sociology graduate students were being registered for their class without their knowledge. While the students this semester are keeping up, this was recognized as a potential problem. Faculty discussed the option of officially limiting graduate courses to sociology graduate students. Staff reminded that this is a contentious issue because the department needs extra-departmental students to keep enrollments up, so that the course can be offered (at least 5 students must be enrolled).
In the cases where classes are cross-listed, faculty agreed that the professor teaching should make themselves available for additional meetings with the graduate students. In reference to the upcoming combined BA/MA 5-year program that is being encouraged by the new president and Arts & Science dean, discussion was held as to the academic standards of cross-listed courses. Specifically, students would have to maintain a 3.75 GPA in Sociology to be considered for the master’s coursework. Faculty feel this will avoid the “watering down” effect that students have complained about.
8. Students are concerned about the lack of advanced quantitative classes available to fulfill the required advanced methods course. If I remember correctly, last time this complaint came up, it was asking for more qualitative. The point remains the same: quantitative-focused students, as well as qualitative-focused students deserve to have an advanced methods course offered each year.Matt Hunt meeting = As the new college comes up, required stats courses in several departments will essentially be the same. When this happens, students will be able to take their required stats courses in other departments, which will open up our faculty to teach more advanced methods courses. Until then, faculty resources make it impossible to guarantee both an advanced quantitative and qualitative methods course each year.
COGS meeting = No decisions were made here. One faculty member suggested that those faculty members not currently engaged in research and publication should be encouraged to take on more courses in substantive or methodological areas. Faculty members agreed that students should be encouraged to check out advanced methods offerings in other departments (these usually count for the advanced methods requirement; check with Chrisie first). For those courses that students would like to count for advanced methods requirement, COGS can be petitioned to accept them, if they’re not already accepted.
9. Students are still unable to get into the building regularly at nights and on weekends. This is especially a concern for students who have late classes outside of the building and need to be able to return to their offices.
Matt Hunt meeting = Matt Hunt talked to Tom Koenig about this, who said it is impossible to get keys. This is related to a series of break-ins and large thefts several years ago. Matt suggested the graduate students do some informal organizing. He was informed that we’ve already tried that, and it didn’t work. He wasn’t aware that math graduate students have keys and would look into it.
COGS meeting = Staff stated that the building was not locked until 11pm. COGS reps stated that several students have had problems getting into the building as early as 6 pm. Faculty members were surprised by these problems, as well as by the fact that math graduate students have keys to the building. Staff reminded us that it is impossible to get keys and we should drop it. Instead, the front office agreed to print every student (who wants it) official departmental letters to be carried on our person to show public safety. This way, we can call public safety and wait for them to come and open the door. Official “I belong here” papers can be shown to prove that you should be let into the building.
10. Has there been progress towards standardizing, in some way, the comps lists, or comps process?
Matt Hunt meeting = Dr. Hunt said that there was a standardization of the number of works made by Danny Faber when he was still graduate director. He said this is available on the dept. website. Dr. Hunt is pro-standardization. He acknowledges that this would require serious commitment on the part of the faculty to form subcommittees. He wanted to know what the graduate students think about this: do we want standardized areas, standardized lists of works (required or suggested), or something else?
There was also discussion of having old comps (reading lists) available in the front office, as well as old dissertations. Dr. Hunt agreed with this idea but noted that other things on our “concerns” list would take higher priority than this.
COGS meeting = Faculty discussed the idea of publishing standard comps lists through topic area subcommittees. COGS reps reminded COGS faculty members that a standard required list is NOT desired. Instead, a list of “core works” or “suggested works” is more appropriate. This will avoid students being required to read works that do not fit into their comp.
One faculty member suggested the idea of a “core concepts” list, rather than a “core works” list. The reason given for this was that the works considered important would change too often to reasonably update the lists. Some faculty members agreed with this and were excited by the idea of a concepts list. Other faculty members argued that discovering important works was part of the comps “excavation” process, and to provide students with a list would be doing part of their work.
11. tracking: How closely does the department follow our progress through the program?
Matt Hunt meeting = Dr. Hunt agreed that it would be nice to do some kind of end of the year “round up” with all the faculty discussing how each student is doing. Then letters could be drafted to communicate with students their standing in the department. Students agreed this would be a welcome improvement.
COGS meeting = COGS reps recommended that faculty members be more open and frank in their discussions of individual graduate student progress. This will give students a better idea of whether or not they are “maintaining satisfactory progress,” a requirement for receiving future funding.
12. Students have voiced concerns over the lack of racial and ethnic diversity among graduate students and faculty members. Does the department currently, or have future plans to, make diversity a priority during the hiring and graduate admissions process?
Matt Hunt meeting = confirmed that actively encouraging ethnic and racial minorities to apply here is a priority for the school. Also noted that the Office for Affirmative Action at Northeastern does weigh in during the hiring process specifically for the purpose of promoting diversity.
COGS meeting = According to one faculty member, efforts are constantly made to actively recruit, accept, and fund racial and ethnic minority students. However, federal guidelines concerning foreign students have made it difficult to produce diverse cohorts.
13. teaching tutorial = what is the process and are there any standardized requirements?
COGS meeting = Faculty members agreed that some sort of professional training should be a priority for the department. They also agreed that the teaching tutorial three credit requirement should be maintained. Various suggestions of proseminars, required attendance workshops, and once-weekly class meetings were made. One faculty member reminded us that this would upset faculty who were more interested in teaching in their substantive area. Another faculty member got upset at this suggestion, reminding the COGS members that professional socialization is part of their jo
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As a graduate student well into the dissertation process I can’t stress enough how hard it has been dealing with the first statement from Matt’s meeting. Fact of the matter is that a faculty/grad student partnership DOES NOT exist here at NU. I was blessed (and I am not a religious person) that one very talented and dedicated faculty member decided to work with me so that I can finish my dissertation, and to her I say thank you. Fact of the matter is that this one faculty member’s name appears on almost all dissertations. This “every person for themselves” culture needs to change! It should not be the grad student’s duty to reach out! Faculty should be interested in working with all grad students, (no reward required!) not just a few exceptional students. I can go on but I will stop by saying that I am just happy that 3 faculty members have embraces, this average grad student’s dissertation.
I don’t know…I agree that we have a culture in the department that is problematic for students staying plugged in to the department. I have long said that is a culture that needs to change in the department. Some graduate programs have more of an ownership relationship between grad student and faculty members. The faculty member makes a decision to take on a student and is responsible for mentoring that person. We don’t have that hear. The plus to a system like that, is we have one-on-one mentoring. The minus to that is, if we change our minds, or want to work with someone else, it is difficult to manage.
I actually think the department accepts too many students. This is an issue, though, of having enough TAs in a year. We end up with more grad students in a year than the faculty want to support—and mainly because we have the money to draw them in to run scantrons for intro classes. There seems, at times, we accept people who don’t match well with the faculty here. This has gotten better over the years, but I think part of this issue people are talking about is that students want to pursue research interests that don’t intersect with faculty interests. This isn’t the faculty’s responsible or problem.
2nd—while I think we need a stronger mentor culture here—I think students need to be responsible for their education. It is your degree—so, you need to be proactive in facilitating your relationship with faculty. It seems at times, students in this program want the department or the faculty to hold your hand through everything. That isn’t possible nor realistic. Expecting the faculty members to help every student that rolls through here out of some sense of duty is naïve. An “every person for themself” culture is not a good thing, of course, but yourself in the position of the faculty—if you had limited time, wouldn’t you be selective in who you worked with? At what point is it the student’s responibility to work on their own degree? I have seen countless people disappear for years at a time in this program—should we expect faculty to stay on these people as well?
Anyway—I agree with the general feeling that there isn’t a strong enough partnership between faculty and grad students—especially in terms of producing “article quality” research. This is hampered by the “book writing” research here. Regardless, though, a student who is afraid to approach faculty cannot really hold the faculty responsible for that.
Asking for more faculty mentoring and support is NOT hand-holding. If a student doesn’t have a strong connection with a professor upon entering, it can be hard to meet faculty members with the same interests around here. The professors that consistantly work with grad students are already over-burdened, and students recognize that. Other professors - where are they? If you don’t show your face in the office, how are students supposed to meet them? There is no outside socialization in this department between grad students and professors - I think one faculty member came to the holiday party last year. Where is the sense that professors and students are working as a team?
In any case, the current students should not be punished for the department letting in too many grad students if that is the case. Success for each and every student should be the goal. This does not have to mean success in the form of a PhD in hand at the end of 5 years. Success could mean leaving with an MA with leads for activism or research opportunities. Success could mean the pointing towards a PhD program with the right faculty for the individual student. But if there is no (or limited) mentoring going on, how can that possibly happen?
i finished this reading a little bit cold (because it’s snowing here) and a little bit angry, cause this is some bullshit. but here’s the problem… the college won’t make any allowances for these types of things, so faculty have no real incentive to work with anyone but themselves. hell, even that doesn’t work, cause active publishers in the department can’t even get a reduction in teaching load. so you can sit on your ass if tenured, never publish a thing, and have the same teaching responsibility as active researchers (i a thinking of examples right now… i bet you can too!!)… what’s the point you say? simple, the people you want to work with are generally those actually producing. those people are simply swamped because their research takes up all their time outside teaching, cause it doesn’t take the place of some teaching. i have run into this with my mentor, and it’s stupid, and it’s irritating, and it isn’t likely to change. and it’s part of why faculty are more reluctant to work with grad students.
having said that, i believe that it is part of the job to work with students, so this hesitation is ridiculous. the comments here so far indicate, in my opinion, a lack of perspective (and some weird sort of neo-liberal leanings that disturb me a little bit). i believe MA students absolutely deserve some type of guidance through the department because it’s their first piece of grad school, and socialization doesn’t happen on its own… are we not sociologists? do we not understand this?
i say if the faculty won’t do it, then we should. i say that we organize an informal preceptorship type thing, run and staffed by students with their MA (strictly voluntary, of course). this person would take on a first year or two and basically be a sounding board and a socializing agent for the department. our cohort was lucky that we had second years that were cool as shit and they helped out. but i think it owuld be nice for incoming students to have someone who has at least been through the entire MA process. were i not here, i would make an effort to organize it myself… and when i return, i will also certainly volunteer.
we had a more formal andstructured thing for my own MA program, and it was completely invaluable to have someone who was dependably there to talk about faculty, courses, and just someone who has at least been through the process already.
thoughts? if truly the faculty is content to or forced to leave first years flapping in the wind, the least we can do as colleagues is try and help out a bit.
I think that the aforementioned idea is a great one, and I am sure that many individuals would be more than willing to volunteer. You make a good point about MA students and their needs…unfortunately it seems as if this point will continue to fall on deaf ears, as many in the department (and many acadmics in ALL departments) feel that graduate programs are a ‘do-or-die’ world in which the socially strong and brave survive. Academic-Social Darwinism?
I do think that advanced level grad students mentoring new grad students would be valuable, but it doesn’t take away from the responsibilities of faculty members (I think many in the faculty would be all-too-happy with this “solution”). Students can be great, but they aren’t going to have all the resources/power to be an advocate/networks/etc that a faculty member has.
Of course asking for more mentoring and support isn’t hand holding—but acting like it is the faculty’s responsiblity to make sure each student doesn’t feel like a “face in the crowd” starts boarding on it. Again—I agree that the culture is problematic. I have watched countless grad students just disappear from the department or kind of float aimlessly after they finish their course work. However—personal responsibility in your graduate education still matters. Putting the onus of socializing each individual grad student on the faculty is not realistic. I can’t think of another work environment where you’d expect that. Just show up and hope someone comes and talks to you and offers you guidance. Again–it is your education.
Now—to be fair—there are fine shades of this. I am just talking about my experiences with other students who would be complaining about faculty—and all I could think while I listen to them is—”you are being so passive in this. I wouldn’t want to work with you”. I have listened to students complain about this faculty member and that member, while basically expecting the faculty to hand them the answers on dissertation proposal or reading lists or what have you—and then concede their own motivation is a problem. I just wonder how much people are blaming faculty mentoring for their own motivation issues. This is not the whole of the mentoring issue. There are folks, I think, that are misled into coming here—thinking there are people that do work on one thing or another…only to find out they don’t work with graduate students or are plugged out of the department or whatever. Then—there are folks who change their minds on what they want to do with their life while in grad school. I certainly do not want to paint this whole thing with a broad brush, saying, “people who are disconnected are unmotivated”. That is not exactly what I am saying. What I am saying though, is people have to be proactive with their own education and part of that is seeking out mentorings, not waiting for it to come to you.
We all know how alienating graduate school can be—I think the emotional parts of the work (like mentoring, socialization, etc) are as difficult as the actual work. But, this is the real world. It seems a bit childish to complain that the faculty doesn’t go out of it’s way to make sure each individual is comfortable. In fact—I’d like to know any serious graduate program that does that.
I do think we accept too many people. You are right that the students in the program shouldn’t be punished because of too many people may be accepted. I am just stating business side of things. I think we are accepting people who don’t match well, in part, to have enough TAs. To me, that’s the beginning of the problem. There is nothing that will really change that.
The overall culture here is bad. There is little interaction between grad students and faculty—like no Christmas Party. However, years ago when we had one, all the grad students sat in one room and all the faculty sat in another. It was STRANGE. I just don’t know what can be done about that, though. Can you make people hang out?
Anyway—there is criticism…and then there is whining. I think when we file grievences with COGS, we need to be mindful of the difference. There is just an undercurrent of “complaints” from the group that are odd. One is complaining that the faculty doesn’t make enough effort to make everyone feel welcome. While it may be true—it technically isn’t their responsbility to do that. To be honest—you shouldn’t go to a graduate program unless you know you have mentors available to you. Unfortunately, some of us learn that too late. We spend all the orientation sessions sharing fluff details with new students like “where the book store” is instead of being honest about the nuts and bolts of the program. I’ll tell you now—every graduate program in the world has some faculty members who do nothing with the graduate program…and some who do a lot. That is a part of academia—not just NU.
Another is this preceived favoritism that is played (mentioned in another point). Most funding is based on objective measures and rankings. The problem was that was never made clear—and probably in an effort to protect some feelings and avoid competition among students. Danny changed that when he was on COGS though. Regardless, acting like there is “favoritism” sounds childish. Asking for more transparency is a legitimate criticism. It is important to distinguish between the two.
On this general discussion of mentoring though—I just want to finish by saying there is a cultural problem here. We accept students without specifically pairing them with faculty interests. As a result, we have some people who get lost in the shuffle. I think the real issue is in the acceptance process though. I think there should be more done in the way of faculty ownership of students in the door. That would help with mentoring—however, I think that means being more selective in terms of who matches well and being honest about which faculty will and will not work with grad students. That is more realistic than expecting people’s personalities to change.
I think the advanced grad student mentor idea is nice—I just have my doubts about it getting off of the ground.
I’d just like to point out that we’re all in this together. The more people that get through this program and do good things, the better your chances will be in getting a job, since Northeastern will be more well known. I’m sure we all pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps here, but it doesn’t seem to me that people are sitting back waiting for things to happen to them. It can be a real frustration if people are trying to find this support and not getting it.
As a first year grad student, I would be grateful to any advanced grad students who would volunteer their time as a “mentor.” I do not think it is unreasonable to expect a faculty mentor. Isn’t that part of the job? It is a common practice among many other graduate schools, and I was quite surprised to find out that it isn’t something that is done here.
Man sometimes these things get me going. This will age me but I was already an “advanced” grad student during “SGA-gate.” I hate to say this but let it be know that saying there is not favoritism here is HORSE SHIT, yeah I said HORSE SHIT. With that said this is grad school and the politics are thick! I must be a decent politician since I maid it with funding every year I qualified so I can’t say I got “screwed” but I can see how thick the BS can get. I am on the verge of finishing my dissertation and I am getting paid to teach (no not making a living) at another university. It can be done perhaps it takes a tough skin at times here at NU. As a final thought I would love to do my part mentoring young grad students.
I think the people who think there is “favoritism” are people who cannot be honest with themselves. It is easier to blame some nefarious plot that favors some people over others than to look in the mirror.
Now that’s just sort of a bitchy comment all around.